Sighs Galore

If there has been a more depressing team to follow than the University of Dayton men's basketball team over the past three years, I would love to hear about it. It might make me feel a little bit better.

So much of me is screaming to give the 2011-12 version of Dayton's "get your hopes up and shoot them down in one fell swoop four times a season" basketball team a break. This team has played with eight scholarship players for most of the season, two of which are Luke Fabrizius and Ralph Hill. It lost its best big man and shot blocker in the middle of the season. In the past two years, the team has seen 12 players leave as a result of graduation, transferring or backing out of commitments. So yeah, things were going to be tough this year. But I can't give Dayton a break. Time and again this season, despite playing with all those disadvantages, they've been in great position and lost. They've won the tough games and then fallen asleep in the easier ones. Home to Buffalo with a 5-1 record, UD lost, 84-55. Then home to Seton Hall (certainly not a bad team, but at home? gotta beat them) with a 8-3 record, UD lost 69-64. At 12-4, Dayton lost 81-73 at St. Bonaventure. At 14-5, Dayton began a four-game A-10 losing streak by going down to St. Joe's, then Rhode Island, then Duquesne.

And last night, barely treading water at 18-10, Dayton had what should have been a relatively easy chance to keep itself afloat. But the Flyers quit spreading the butter on the surface and stopped riding the bicycle underneath it. UD lost 82-71 at Richmond, a mediocre team that Dayton has the talent to beat four out of five times. Instead of the four, this game was the one. Dayton gave up 82 points to a team that averages 69 a game. It gave up 30 points to a player that was averaging 13.5 per game. Chris Johnson and Kevin Dillard played well on offense, but the team laid an egg on defense. Maybe Richmond was hot last night. But that's what we said about Buffalo and Seton Hall's guards and Andrew Nicholson and Billy Baron and Tu Holloway. At a certain point, you have to stop making excuses.

Yes, this Dayton team is playing with less than any team should ever have to, but that didn't matter at Temple or in UD Arena against Alabama and Xavier. Perhaps in those games UD played to its maximum potential and delivered an unsustainable performance. But even if that's the case, Dayton has been unable to even deliver an average performance in its simpler contests this season.

Losses like last night make you wonder if this team really has changed at all. How can a team know that it has a shot at the NCAA Tournament and not just go thrash a bad opponent. How are the players not so fired about that opportunity that they show off their superior skills and dominate a game?

I guess we'll keep on wondering until we see Dayton win this type of game. Don't hold your breath.

Make or Break?

Last week I wrote about the Dayton-Duquesne game, and how it didn't matter that much because UD's NCAA Tournament hopes rested solely on winning the Atlantic 10 Tournament. Still, I wanted to see the Flyers play hard, play well and win. Well, they did that. And as far as I was concerned, nothing had changed for UD except for the number in its win column this season. Then my brother pointed me to this tweet from Joe Lunardi, saying that UD was closer than maybe we expected to being a tournament team. Flabbergasted, I followed UD's performance while at work that night as it thrashed Massachusetts, 76-43 at home. When I got home, I watched ESPN and got on ESPN.com for the latest Bracketology updates, and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that Dayton was Lunardi's seventh team out of the tournament--they were his 45th-best candidate to receive an at-large bid. I sort of assumed that Joe had lost his mind, but looking at other brackets, the same was true. UD was just outside the field (in some cases, in it).

So is Dayton's game at Richmond tonight a make or break for the Flyers? No and yes. Winning at Richmond (15-15, 6-9 A-10) will not vault the Flyers into the projected NCAA Tournament field, or even help them bypass a single team in front of them (unless one of those teams loses). But losing to Richmond would certainly spell doom for Dayton's at-large chances (I am still skeptical that these even exist).

That is why tonight's game is so nerve-racking. If there is any type of game that UD has perfected losing, it is this one. An important game against a weak opponent (almost always a conference opponent) that will drastically effect Dayton's place in the A-10 standings one way or another. I don't really want to look to the past for proof, but here goes: at 3-3 in the A-10 last year, Dayton traveled to Duquesne and lost 84-62. After righting the ship the Flyers were 5-4 in A-10 play; they then lost by 14 at Rhode Island. At 7-8 in the conference that year, Dayton played its final game at George Washington and lost 60-58. In the 2009-10 season, UD was 3-1 in the A-10, then lost consecutive games at Saint Joe's and with Rhode Island visiting. At 6-3 in the conference, Dayton lost 68-65 at Saint Louis, then lost on senior night again to the Billikens while sporting an 8-7 record. During the 2007-08 season, Dayton suffered some injuries after starting 2-0 in the conference. In then lost at home to UMass, 82-71. After recovering somewhat and getting to 4-4, Dayton lost consecutive games at George Washington and home to Duquesne. Are you getting the picture? (Too bad if you aren't, because I'm slamming my head against the desk as I'm writing this. For my own safety, we aren't reliving any more devastation). All three of those teams were on and off the bubble throughout the second half of the season. I believe each of them had the talent to make the big dance, but none of them did.

This year's team is not the same in terms of style of play, but in terms of wins and losses the similarities are striking. At 2-0 in the A-10, Dayton lost at St. Bonaventure. At 4-1, the Flyers forgot how to play defense and lost three straight to weaker teams (St. Joe's, Rhode Island, Duquesne) and then one more at a good St. Louis team. Like in past years, it is not unreasonable to say that a win instead of a loss in any of Dayton's A-10 defeats would barely change the team's record, but it would make the team's resume look significantly better. This year's team would be 19-9, and in a third-place tie at 9-5 in the conference. It's just one game, but doesn't 19-9, 9-5 look worlds better than 18-10, 8-6. It does to me. Not to mention that it would take a bad loss of of UD's resume.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about this season as it has turned out, though, is a game we all expected UD to lose. When UD lost 86-83 in overtime at Xavier Feb. 18th, I think it's fair to say most UD fans were disappointed that the team had come so close and lost, but not surprised that Dayton had lost. But now, Xavier has had an extremely rocky second half of the season, and according to Lunardi, is outside the field of 68 just like UD. Essentially this means that a win at Xavier could have (would likely have?) put Dayton in charge of its own tournament destiny, and all but eliminated Xavier's chances. How sweet would that have been? About 150,000 times sweeter than when Brian Roberts dropped 30 points on Pittsburgh.

Sorry, I got carried away there. There's no point in getting caught up in the past. Because tonight, Dayton plays a game that is just as important as that one at Xavier was. Kris Mooney and Richmond have had Dayton's number the past couple years. Last year, it was Richmond that denied Dayton a surprise bid to the tournament by beating them in the A-10 Tourney Championship. But this has been a rebuilding year for the Spiders. It's time for the Flyers to jump on them and take advantage. The committee just might be watching.

Mid-Major Report: 2/27

For the second week in a row, the No. 1 team in the Mid-Major report has gone a disappointing 0-2, and the rankings have shaken again. I wrote about a month ago in a report about how incredible it was that we had so many mid-major teams delivering the season-long performances that they were: Murray State undefeated, Creighton, San Diego State, Harvard and Saint Mary's with two losses, Wichita State and UNLV with just three apiece. Now as we enter the final week of regular season play (some teams have already finished their regular seasons), many of those teams have come back to a more normal level. With New Mexico's losses, the best three teams from the Mountain West have six losses each. Saint Mary's and Creighton have five. Harvard has four. These teams are all still excellent, but those records are much more typical of the best mid-major teams in a given season. Should we be concerned about the fact that most of these teams have accrued half or more of their losses in the latter part of the season? In some cases, absolutely (Creighton, San Diego State). In others, I wouldn't fret too much.

As always, check out the initial mid-major report for information on how I make my ranking decisions.

Dropped Out: Saint Louis (0-1 last week lost at Rhode Island), Temple (1-1 last week, lost by 10 to St. Joe's), Harvard (1-1 last week, lost at home to Penn)
Outside looking in: San Diego State, Long Beach State, Oral Roberts, Middle Tennessee, Weber State

10. Iona (23-6, 53rd in Ken Pomeroy's team rankings)
The Gaels are back! Having locked up the MAAC regular season championship (at 14-3, they have a two game lead with one game to play) on the strength of a four-game win-streak, Iona has done just about as well as it could to secure an at-large bid in the tournament. Unfortunately, I don't the selection committee will be inviting the Gaels unless they win the MAAC Tournament. Which is why everyone needs to root for Iona in the next week and a half. There are certain teams you can watch and know that they are the real deal, that they would play well against just about anybody in the country; Iona is one of those teams. It is the highest scoring team in the nation (82.9 points per game), shoots just under 50 percent for the season, and has the nations leading assists man in Scott Machado (10 assists per game). Iona plays an entertaining, up-tempo style and can score with anyone in the country. It is a team good enough to get an at-large bid, but I suspect its strength of schedule and lack of good wins will doom Iona if it does not win its conference tournament.

9. Virginia Commonwealth (25-6, 47 Pomeroy)
My dad has been blindly biased toward the Colonial Athletic Association for a couple years now. Certainly, it has been an exemplary mid-major conference, with two different teams making the final four and receiving multiple bids to the tournament several times in the past ten years. This year, my dad's love for the CAA is burning as bright as ever, but the rest of the country (myself included) is not sold on them. Particularly in terms of RPI (flawed, but it is a method of measure), the CAA looks pretty bad. But Virginia Commonwealth has now won 14 of its last 15 games (the one loss was on a 30 foot buzzer-beater to George Mason), and seems to be playing pretty well. In past years, a 25-6 record would have VCU as a lock in the tournament, no questions asked. But this year, Shaka Smart's team decided to play an extremely weak schedule, and lose the only games it did play against decent competition (Seton Hall, Alabama, Drexel). Still, looking at the bubble tells me the Rams should have done enough so far to qualify for an at-large bid. South Florida has currently played its way into a bid, according to Joe Lunardi; VCU beat USF by 25 early in the season. VCU also happens to be much hotter right now that USF has been at any point this year. But the weak schedule will kill them. In my mind, unless VCU is able to advance as far as the conference championship game (not making it there would mean another loss to a weaker CAA team), it will be overlooked come Selection Sunday.

8. Brigham Young (24-7, 38 Pomeroy)
The Cougars lost (unsurprisingly) at Gonzaga last week, but came back and closed out their season with a 76-66 win against Portland. While the loss to Gonzaga means BYU finished third instead of second in the WCC, the win afterward still rounded out a fine season post-Jimmer Fredette for BYU. The Cougars can score with the best of the country (79 points per game), and are a dangerous three-point shooting team, which is always something to watch out for come tournament time. They play one of the most up-tempo styles in the country and actually have a pretty good defense to go along with it (22nd in adjusted defense at kenpom). If the Cougars can pick up a win over Gonzaga or St. Mary's in the WCC Tournament, it would do wonders for the team's seeding when the NCAA Tournament is picked.

7. New Mexico (22-6, 15 Pomeroy)
Last week, after beating San Diego State and UNLV, I wrote that New Mexico finally appeared to be living up to its lofty ranking at kenpom.com. After losing to Colorado State and TCU this week, however, I don't think there can be much doubt that the Lobos are a team that has just played to Pomeroy's system well, and not a top 15 (or earlier, top 10) team in the country. New Mexico is still a good team, and could get back on track with some wins in the Mountain West Tournament, but you have to be concerned about a group that can take a two-game lead in the conference with just four games to play, then give that lead up in its next two games. I'm concerned about a team that can't close, whether its during an individual game or in a season-long competition. New Mexico had its shot to close UNLV and SDSU out, but couldn't get the job done against mediocre competition.

6. Saint Mary's (25-5, 40 Pomeroy)
The other Gaels return to the list at number six by closing out their season with wins at Portland and at San Francisco. Knocking St. Mary's off the list last week was perhaps a bit strong, but they had the committee worried with losses in three of four games. Picking up wins on the road and securing the West Coast Conference title offered some assurance that St. Mary's has mostly righted the ship. Winning the WCC Tournament or at least losing to Gonzaga in the finals would offer even more assurance that St. Mary's is back. This teams remains one of my favorite mid-majors as far as watching them play. The Gaels play a real team game, with solid players at every position. They have an excellent general in Matthew Dellavedova, and with all their experience, I believe the Gaels will correct their mistakes and be strong as ever heading into the NCAAs.

5. Creighton (25-5, 39 Pomeroy)
After a 102-74 thrashing of Illinois State at home, Creighton has not exactly been inspiring. Their seven games since that win to close out the season: Lost 65-62 at Northern Iowa, lost 65-57 at Evansville, lost 89-68 home to Wichita State, won 88-69 at Southern Illinois, won 81-79 home to Long Beach State, won 93-92 (OT) home to Evansville, won 61-60 at Indiana State. Sure, Creighton recovered from its three straight losses and got four straight wins, but the final three were all escapes. Needing overtime to beat Evansville at home does not inspire confidence. The Blue Jays will (and should) be comfortably in the NCAA Tournament (maybe a 6 seed?) but unless they show me something in the MVC Tournament, I will be avoiding them like the plague come tournament time. They are playing mediocre basketball at the wrong time.

4. UNLV (24-6, 31 Pomeroy)
After its disappointing two-loss week while at No. 1 in the MMR, UNLV did what New Mexico could not this week: beat the weaker teams in the conference. The Rebels beat Boise State and Air Force at home, and pulled level in the Mountain West standings. Who knows what is going to happen in that conference now? No team has been willing or able to step up and take the title for itself. And none of the top three play each other the rest of the regular season. So it will be all about who can beat the lesser teams. UNLV may have the toughest road of the three to winning out, with games against Colorado State (beaten New Mexico and SDSU this season) and Wyoming (beat UNLV earlier). It's time to really see what these MWC teams are made of.

3. Drexel (25-5, 45 Pomeroy)
When discussing VCU, we discussed the CAA. If Drexel does not win the CAA tournament and does not get an at-large bid, we will have our biggest snub of the year without question. The fact that scenario is even a possibility is insane to me. Even if we are accepting that the CAA is not as good as it has been in years past, it is at least still decent competition. And Drexel finished its season with 17 straight wins, most if it against that decent competition. What else is there a team can do to earn itself a bid than win incessantly. The Dragons are very good this year. Their two losses in the conference came early in the season when they were not at full strength. It's been almost two months since they suffered a loss. Give Drexel its due, please.

2. Murray State (28-1, 48 Pomeroy)
I was expecting it to take much longer for the Racers to climb this high in the MMR so quickly. But once again, they've been winning while everybody else (almost) has been losing. The Racers closed their season with wins at Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech, and now we need to root for them to win the OVC Tournament. Another team from that conference winning would be a disaster for the bubble, and that team would just be heading to the tourney to get thrashed. Just a couple more wins, Murray State. They've been doing it all year, so a couple more shouldn't be too much to ask.

1. Wichita State (26-4, 8 Pomeroy)
Are the Shockers really a top 10 team in the country? After seeing them and some of the teams surrounding them in the kenpom rankings (North Carolina, Wisconsin, Missouri, Duke, Georgetown), I'm starting to believe. The Shockers finishe 26-4 and won the Missouri Valley Conference on the strength of wins at Illinois State and home against Drake last week. The way they have finished this season, an MVC Tournament Championship would put them in the 3-seed tier in my mind. After losing at home to Creighton on New Year's Eve, Wichita has won 16 of 17, and looked good doing it. They start four seniors and a junior, and have six different players who can be relied on to score in double figures in a given game. Watch out, March. The Shockers look primed to make some noise.

The RPI vs. all

As we move through the final couple weeks of college basketball season, the selection committee and teams on the bubble will begin to take over what is important in basketball. And this year, as those potential selections have started to draw our attention, I've noticed that the RPI seems to have taken more shots than usual. Eamonn Brennan of ESPN.com has written about his disdain for the RPI and Scott Van Pelt delivered a diatribe (that made about 30 good points) on the matter.

Then yesterday I read an excellent piece from John Gasaway on the history of the RPI from Basketball Prospectus (it's a long article, but if you've got the time, check it out). Gasaway attended the NCAA's mock selection committee and came away searching for more information. Some of the more interesting tidbits to be found in this article:

"Van Valkenburg and his staff looked at using margin of victory in their new rating system, but rejected the idea for two reasons: it could encourage coaches to run up the score, and final scores "oftentimes do not reflect the closeness of games." Instead Van Valkenburg and his colleagues formulated a rating system that adjusted a team's Division I winning percentage based on strength of schedule and game location. The name "Ratings Percentage Index" apparently came about because it did not include the taboo word "Ranking" and because it was thought "RPI" formed a serviceable acronym."
Among the largest complaints about the RPI is that it does not take margin of victory into account. Many of the newer metrics for measuring teams lists margin of victory as an essential component to whether or not a team is actually good (KenPom, LRMC, ESPN's new BPI, John Hollinger's NBA rankings, the list goes on). And there is some truth to that. A team that is 10-0 with all its wins by three or less points is probably not as good as one that is 8-2 with seven wins by double digits, and two losses by five or less. But what is more interesting from that quote is why the RPI creators chose not to use margin of victory. They believed it would encourage coaches to have their teams run up the score. And think about it: for the past decade or so, haven't we heard about teams doing what they can to satisfy the RPI? It started out by teams just trying to secure as high a winning percentage as possible, then when the RPI was adjusted, the fad became scheduling as many top-100 RPI teams as they can to improve their RPI ranking with wins. So if margin of victory was included in the initial RPI, wouldn't coaches have just left their starters in the game in early season games and tried to win by 50? Would that have helped to tell us anything about which of those teams was best? Interestingly, as Gasaway notes in the Prospectus piece, the exclusion of margin of victory in the RPI has "created the perfect conditions under which scoring margin, adjusted for strength of schedule, could and has become a surpassingly powerful evaluative tool. But those of us who use that tool should acknowledge the analytic free ride we've been given, courtesy of Van Valkenburg. The stats we're able to deploy in 2012 are great at evaluating teams -- but the only teams we've ever been able to evaluate have been ones striving to look good to Jim Van Valkenburg, and not to us."

Also of note from the article: "Today when Van Valkenburg's invention is faulted on the grounds that it doesn't perform as well as other rating systems that benefit from more recent advances, an oddly prevalent response is that the NCAA "isn't trying to predict anything." Gasaway goes on to say that it seems odd to him the NCAA wouldn't want to improve upon its own formulas between seasons, but I couldn't help but be struck by the above quote, because I agree with it wholeheartedly. I hate the RPI, and have since I've been old enough to grasp what it is. But when selecting teams for the NCAA Tournament, I don't think the NCAA should be "trying to predict anything". It should be selecting for at-large bids the 38 teams that have earned it more than others. Of course, who has "earned" it most is weak language because it could be interpreted in many ways, but I think first and foremost to "earning" a berth in the tournament should be winning. And so it occurred to me that while the Jeff Sagarins and Ken Pomeroys of the world may have better systems for showing us which teams are the best in the country (I believe they do), their systems may not be any better than the RPI for selecting tournament teams, because they are meant to be predictive. I don't care how well the numbers think a team like Minnesota will perform if given a shot, I care whether the team's results from the season warrant being given a shot. So I decided to do a comparison between the ratings systems.

There are 38 at-large bids given out in the NCAA Tournament. So I looked at the top 38 teams in the RPI (as according to realtimerpi.com), Sagarin and Kenpom ratings. Of course, several of those teams will win their conference tournaments and receive automatic bids. To account for those teams, I removed any team that was in first place in its conference as of games played Feb. 22, and used the top 38 excluding those teams. Here were the final 15 teams to make the bracket from each rating system:

From looking that list over, one thing becomes abundantly clear quickly: the RPI is grossly overrating the Conference-USA. In the RPI, the C-USA would be getting four teams into the tournament (Southern Miss is rated 11th! and Memphis is 27th), including a 17-10 Marshall squad whose best win this season is a 65-64 triumph at home over UCF. Um, no. Also, the RPI has St. Joseph's making the tournament, an 18-11 team out of the A-10 with essentially the same resume' as Dayton, but less quality wins. Clearly, the RPI is not a very good system for placing these teams in the tournament.

But a quick glance at the Kenpom final 15 doesn't exactly set one's mind at ease. Two names jump off the page from the Pomeroy final 15: La Salle and South Dakota St. Pomeroy has been championing the Explorers out of the A-10 as one of the nation's most underrated teams, but they are just 18-10 (7-6 in the A-10) with losses to Robert Morris, Delaware, Dayton, Richmond and St. Joe's. Doesn't look like a tournament team to me. And South Dakota State has gone 22-7 on the season, but they play in the Summit League. They have lost to 12-14 North Dakota by 19 points, 15-14 Oakland, and (wait for it) a 9-17 South Dakota team. I'm sure the battle for South Dakota is as intense as any rivalry in the country, but South Dakota is 4-12 in the Summit this year. Maybe if SDSU's record were more like 26-3, you could forgive them a loss like that. But 22-7? I don't think so.

In Sagarin's final 15, the largest disturbance for me is in the five consecutive Big East teams near the top. In addition to those, Sagarin has four rated above them receiving bids. His nine Big East teams do not include South Florida, a team that sits third in the conference standings and in the eyes of the committee is probably ahead of at least a couple of those teams in the final 15. So according to those rankings, NINE OR TEN BIG EAST TEAMS SHOULD MAKE THE TOURNAMENT THIS YEAR. THE BIG EAST IS NOT VERY GOOD THIS YEAR! Come on. Looking at the Big East standings doesn't do anything to assuage the discomfort. The team currently sitting 10th is West Virginia (17-11, 7-8 Big East). Perfect resume' for sneaking into a 10 or 11 seed. Ugh. The other issue I see in Sagarin's is one that pops up in Kenpom as well. San Diego State is rated by both of them as barely making the tournament. In Kenpom, the Aztecs are actually the last team to make the field. Sure, SDSU has suffered some bad losses of late and fallen off a bit, but that is still insane! They are so far superior to the teams surrounding them in each of those ratings (Northwestern, South Dakota State, Minnesota, Southern Miss), that this almost looks like a joke.

In addition to all this, if Murray State were to lose its conference tournament, it would not receive an at-large bid according to Kenpom's numbers (currently rated 56, San Diego St. is 57), and would be right on the borderline for Sagarin (currently 46, Illinois is 55). That is ridiculous. I don't think there is much doubt the Racers have proven they belong comfortably in the tournament, not on the bubble (let alone off it). Of course, the RPI would have three Pac-12 teams making the field (absurd), and would be setting Colorado State as a six or seven seed. The Rams (17-9, 6-5) have had a couple great wins in the Mountain West, but should not be considered a tournament team yet.

Interesting to me is that all three systems have Miami of Florida making the field relatively comfortably (a nine or 10 seed). The U certainly qualifies as a bubble team at the moment, but at 16-10 overall and 7-6 in the ACC with exactly zero good wins on its resume' (best so far are wins over Clemson and Virginia Tech), the Hurricanes should not be considered an easy choice right now (as they seem to be by all three ratings systems). Maybe Miami actually is better than it seems, though, if three different methods of looking at them come out relatively positive.

I realize that neither Jim Van Valkenberg, Ken Pomeroy nor Jeff Sagarin would say the best way to make tournament selections would be to simply run down their list and pick them in order. Pomeroy has said as much and Van Valkenberg's son says the same in the Prospectus piece. I know am pretty sure all those men would believe that Murray State and San Diego State are easy tournament calls.

But that wasn't the point of this post. Yes, the RPI is horrible. But when it comes to its supposed principal use, selecting tournament teams, all of our advanced metrics from today aren't much better at doing the job.

Dayton at Duquesne: does it really matter?

Per my post from last week about Dayton's NCAA Tournament chances, you would have to say with an overtime loss at Xavier, UD lost any shot for an at-large NCAA Tournament bid. So in theory, everything the team does from now until the beginning of the Atlantic 10 Tournament doesn't matter. Sure, UD could help itself it terms of seeding in the A-10 Tourney, but they are going to be in the bottom eight anyway, having to play four games to win the whole thing. In my mind, it doesn't make much difference if you're the five seed or the 10 seed.

But that doesn't mean tonight's game at Duquesne doesn't matter. To a real basketball team, it's important because it signifies a shot at revenge for an embarrassing loss at home earlier in the season. It signifies a chance to get back on track and get rolling going into the tournament. Perhaps most importantly, it signifies a chance for Dayton's guards to show they are better than the annoyingly incredible (or is that incredibly annoying?) TJ McConnell.

As a fan of the team, I know the season is close to being over. I will continue to hold out hope they'll make a run in the tournament and bring UD fans a miracle, but in my head I know that's about as likely to happen as me going for a run this week (note: there's almost no way it's happening; I'm pitiful).

Even knowing that this season is all but over for UD, I still can't think of anything that would be more disappointing than to see UD mail it in over its final four games. When Dayton lost by 29 to Buffalo early in the season, it was absolutely heartbreaking to watch the body language and lack of effort put on display by the players. To see a team that has played hard above everything else, even if it meant making tons of mistakes in the process, since I've followed them just give up, I can't think of any other way to describe my feelings.

So even if they aren't playing for anything over the next two weeks, I still won't be able to stomach the Flyers not giving it their all.

Mid-Major Report: 2/21

After a fantastic Bracketbusters weekend, here we are again with the Mid-Major Report. Similar to last week, there have been some serious shake-ups regarding the rankings. With so many good teams playing each other, that was bound to happen. But the week also produced some extremely surprising results outside of Bracketbusters games, specifically in the Mountain West Conference. That is why we have a new number one team. Keep reading to see who they are. As always, refer to the first report of the year for information about how these rankings are achieved.

Dropped Out: San Diego State (0-2 last week, lost to New Mexico and Air Force), Saint Mary's (0-2 last week, lost to Loyola Marymount and at Murray State, have now lost three of four)
A very surprising duo to see fall from the rankings, considering two weeks ago I would have said neither one had a shot at dropping out. But then again, I didn't foresee results like these.
Outside Looking In: Iona, Long Beach State(had their shot at Creighton), George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth, Weber State

10. Saint Louis (22-5, 11th in Ken Pomeroy team rankings
The Billikens return to the Mid-Major Report after a six-week hiatus. They looked among the best mid-majors in the country early in the year, but then lost a couple games and couldn't string enough wins together to get back on top. Now, Saint Louis has won six in a row and nine of ten, including a win at Xavier during the stretch, to provide a little separation for itself from the teams behind it in the Atlantic 10 standings. The Billikens have been highly rated by kenpom.com's system the entire season (39th-ranked adjusted offense, 10th adjusted-defense, top-100 strength of schedule), and appear to be living up to their predictive billing now. With just three games left, the Billikens go on the road twice and play Xavier at home--not an easy road to the finish. But they look to be in good shape for a middling seed at the NCAA Tournament.

9. UNLV (22-6, 29 Pomeroy)
The Rebels were the number 1 team last week, mainly because I couldn't justify placing New Mexico ahead of them. Well, they quickly let me know I should have done just that by losing in overtime to TCU at home. And then they made sure to let the country know they weren't up to the task of being No. 1 by delivering their lowest offensive output on the season by 19 points, and getting trounced at New Mexico in the process. The high ranking from last week and win over San Diego State are all that barely kept the Rebels in the top 10. They are still a very good team, and Mike Moser is one of the very best players on any mid-major team in the country. The Rebels will recover, but last week was ugly.

8. Drexel (23-5, 46 Pomeroy)
The Drexel Dragons are making their debut in the Mid-Major top 10 on the strength of a 15-game winning streak (and they've won 21 of their last 22). After dealing with injuries at the beginning of the year, the Dragons are at full strength and atop the Colonial Athletic Association (tied with George Mason). The Colonial looks like a better conference than it has been given credit for this season, as it fared pretty well in Bracketbusters games (the top four teams in the conference all won, including Drexel by 20 at Cleveland State and Old Dominion at Missouri State). So at 14-2, the Dragons probably deserve more credit than they've been given so far. Despite middle of the road advanced metrics (66th adjusted-offense, 51st adjusted-defense), the Dragons looked very impressive Saturday and are hot as can be.

7. Creighton (23-5, 37 Pomeroy)
Creighton went 2-0 last week, but is barely in the top 10 after stealing its Bracketbusters game from Long Beach State. You can't help but feel like the Blue Jays would be gone if they had been unfortunate enough to have a road game instead of a home one. But they played at home, and with wins at Southern Illinois and over LBSU, they may have righted the ship. Sure, the Jays gave away the the Missouri Valley regular season, but they still have the best player in the conference in Doug McDermott, and with a run in the MVC Tournament, could play themselves back into good seeding in the NCAAs.

6. Harvard (23-3, 30 Pomeroy)
After the disappointing loss at Princeton last week, Harvard got back to what it does best (18th-ranked adjusted-defense), and gave up 42 and 51 points with wins over Brown and Yale last week. The win over Yale in particular was important because a loss would have meant the Crimson had fallen back to the pack in the Horizon League standings. But with the win it maintained a game advantage over Penn and extended its lead on Yale to two games. Harvard still has key games against Princeton and Penn (both at home) to come, so its fate is far from determined yet.

5. Temple (21-5, 31 Pomeroy)
It was a relatively pedestrian week for Temple, which enjoyed wins over A-10 middle-of-the-pack-ers St. Bonaventure and Duquesne. Still, two wins at this stage of the season always look good. With four games to play, Temple has one tough week (this week), and one that looks much simpler in closing out the season. The Owls play at LaSalle (a surprising 18-9, 7-5 in the A-10 this year) and then a rivalry game at St. Joseph's, which has also played above its expectations in the conference this year, posting an 8-5 mark so far. Both those games should be wins for Temple, but don't underestimate the upset potential of a road game against the other A-10 school from Philadelphia.

4. Brigham Young (23-6, 32 Pomeroy)
Yes, BYU has climbed to fourth in the rankings. Despite losing twice to Saint Mary's this year, the Cougars are in the top five, while the Gaels are outside the top 10. But guess what? BYU's record in the last two weeks is 4-0, and St. Mary's is 1-3. Sure, BYU's mark has come against lesser competition (at San Francisco (not bad) and at Santa Clara (terrible) last week), but these rankings are about who's playing well right now. The Gaels aren't. The Cougars seem to be. We'll find out just how well they're playing this week, when BYU visits Gonzaga Thursday. It will not be a game they are expected to win, but if BYU can pull off the upset, like New Mexico, we'll have to start taking them very seriously.

3. Murray State (26-1, 57 Pomeroy)
Everyone can go ahead and calm back down about whether the Racers are for real or not. Since its loss to Tennessee State, Murray State has gone 3-0 with an average margin of victory of 14 points. And if you didn't follow college basketball this weekend, Murray's most recent victory was a 14-point clubbing of Saint Mary's, in which the Racers took the lead and never looked back. For being the game most Bracketbusters aficionados were looking forward to, it was pretty anticlimactic. The Racers were really in control of a team that until about a week and a half ago I thought was the best mid-major in the country. So much for that. Even though kenpom.com will still never be able to fully give the Racers the love they deserve due to their run of close games and poor strength of schedule, they still jumped 11 spots in his rankings from last week. That's pretty significant this late in the season. And now, a running of the table has Murray back in the conversation for a top-5 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

2. Wichita State (24-4, 10 Pomeroy)
In you were to ask me who was the most impressive team from Bracketbusters weekend, I would not hesitate in saying it was the Shockers. They appear to be living up to the lofty expectations kenpom.com has had for them for most of the season. On Saturday Wichita visited Davidson and matched up with a very impressive Wildcats squad (one that I suspect will be on these rankings most of next year; they bring all five starters back). After an extremely entertaining first half, the Shockers just imposed their will on Davidson en route to a 91-74 win. Wichita really looked excellent. It shot the ball extremely well, showed off its impressive depth and athleticism, and delivered a dominant offensive second half. These players--Joe Ragland, Toure' Murry, Ben Smith, David Kyles and Carl Hall, are as athletic a group as anywhere in America that I've seen this season. O, and not mentioned in that group is the Shockers' leading scorer and rebounder, 7-footer Garrett Stutz.

1. New Mexico (22-4, 9 Pomeroy)
In similar fashion to Wichita, New Mexico lived up to its advanced-metric hype this past week. At No. 2 last week, I said the Lobos would have to prove to me that they've changed since the beginning of the conference season. Well, prove themsevles they did. With a 10-point win at San Diego State and a 20-point win (and dominant defensive performance) at home against UNLV, the Lobos delivered the most impressive two-win week of any team in the Mid-Major Report this year. With losses by both SDSU and UNLV to other opponents during the week, New Mexico also seized control of the Mountain West regular season race, opening up a 2-game lead. They have the seventh-ranked adjusted-defense at kenpom.com and a star in Drew Gordon who is playing his best ball at the right time (17 points, 17 rebounds at SDSU, 27 points, 20 rebounds vs. UNLV). After a fantastic weekend of college basketball, New Mexico and The Pit sit at No. 1.

Bracketbusters Primer

What's On and Why to Watch
This Saturday is the most important weekend of the college basketball regular season. Rivalry week is cool and sometimes we get weekends with several good games, but nothing comes close in importance to Bracketbusters. More than any other single weekend during the season, it shapes the field of the NCAA Tournament. Some of the teams playing this weekend are almost certainly in the field (St. Mary's-Murray State) and will be playing more for seeding purposes. Others, however, will be playing to put themselves in strong position for an at-large bid if they don't happen to win their conference tournaments (Long Beach State, Davidson, Akron-Oral Roberts, Nevada-Iona). And all these key games will be on TV! If you haven't been doing your homework on college basketball and watching some its lesser-known teams, now is your best shot. Pay attention, because at least two of these teams will get good matchups come tournament time and make it through the first weekend. If you watched them now, you just might pick it correctly then.

11 a.m. Drexel at Cleveland State
In the first game of the day, we have a key game for Drexel. Cleveland State looked like an at-large contender for much of the season, but it has lost too many games in the Horizon League to make a case anymore. Winning the Horizon Tournament is the Vikings' only shot. Drexel, on the other hand, has won 14 straight and sits tied atop the Colonial at 14-2. The Dragons looked weak earlier in the year due to some top players sitting out. They would appear to have hit their stride, and a quality road win Saturday would greatly help their chances at an at-large bid. A loss, however, would be crippling. With Cleveland State not quite as strong resume-wise as was expected a couple weeks ago, this has become a virtual must-win game for Drexel.

Noon Wichita State at Davidson
At 20-6 and 14-2 in the Southern Conference, Davidson is still on the outside looking in. 20-6 is a great record, just not coming from that conference with losses to the likes of College of Charleston and Samford. With a win over Wichita State, however, the Wildcats would make a very serious case for themselves to be deserving of an at-large bid. Wichita, on the other hand, looks like a lock for the tournament and finds itself in much the same position Creighton was in a couple weeks ago: keep winning and earn yourself an excellent seed, maybe as high as a four. Lose, and then we're talking about the 7-8-9-10 range, giving the Shockers a much more difficult second-round matchup than they would like.

2 p.m. Akron at Oral Roberts
4 p.m. Nevada at Iona
Both these games are simple: win and you're barely on the bubble; lose and your only shot is the automatic bid. All four teams have had great seasons, but have had untimely losses to weak conference opponents. Those types of losses can only be forgiven to a certain extent. My gut tells me only Iona has an outside shot of actually receiving an at-large bid from the selection committee. So definitely root for the Gaels to win if you're a mid-major fan.

6 p.m. Saint Mary's at Murray State
Everyone was extremely concerned that Murray was in serious trouble after its first loss of the season, because several of its previous games had been too close for comfort. Saint Mary's comes into this game, almost inexplicably, as the team I'm more concerned about. After its loss, Murray State has won comfortably since; by 19 at home and 9 on the road. Saint Mary's loss to Gonzaga was not surprising, but its loss by 15 at home to Loyola Marymount was extremely surprising. Having lost two of three, the Gaels have just as much to prove as the Racers do. Both these teams are almost certainly going to make the tournament. But the loser of this game stands to see its seeding drop from a possible top-3 seed two weeks ago to something more like a 10 or 11, which would be pretty unbelievable. That makes this a hugely important game for both teams.

10 p.m. Long Beach State at Creighton
A game that when it was announced look like a shot for Long Beach State to score a huge upset and put itself back on the map has now morphed into an important one for Creighton as well. The Blue Jays stopped the bleeding with a 19-point win at Southern Illinois, but their three-game losing streak is looming large in the eyes of any committee. They are still a very strong case for an at-large bid, but are in similar waters as Saint Mary's and Murray State: another loss and it starts getting really interesting. Long Beach State, on the other hand, would have one of the strongest cases for a at-large bid of any mid-major. The 49ers' record is just 19-6, but five of those losses came to San Diego State (in OT), at Louisville, at Kansas (by eight) at North Carolina (by 6) and at Kansas State. They've also won at Pittsburgh and Xavier this season. A win at Creighton would give them three excellent non-conference road wins to go with a currently perfect conference record. That's got to be a bid, or this committee will be a failure.

O yeah, and in non-Bracketbusters action UNLV plays at New Mexico, Yale is at Harvard, and Dayton will be at Xavier.

Enjoy.